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28RepliesIn Amrei Bahr & Markus Seidel (eds.), Ernest Sosa: Targeting His Philosophy, Springer. pp. 135-146. 2016.For me the two-day workshop was an excellent experience. It was very good to be reminded of all those issues that I had grappled with so intensely in earlier years, and I very much appreciated the opportunity to think about them again and to try to put them in perspective with the stimulus of the critical teams’ focused attention. I am very pleased and grateful for the intense attention and challenge to my views, and for the excellent comments. I will do my best to respond with some helpful disc…Read more
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114Generic reliabilism and virtue epistemologyPhilosophical Issues 2 79-92. 1992.Problems for Generic Reliabilism lead to a more specific account of knowledge as involving the exercise of intellectual virtues or faculties.
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2333Epistemic Justification: Internalism Vs. Externalism, Foundations Vs. VirtuesWiley-Blackwell. 2003.Ever since Plato it has been thought that one knows only if one's belief hits the mark of truth and does so with adequate justification. The issues debated by Laurence BonJour and Ernest Sosa concern mostly the nature and conditions of such epistemic justification, and its place in our understanding of human knowledge. Presents central issues pertaining to internalism vs. externalism and foundationalism vs. virtue epistemology in the form of a philosophical debate. Introduces students to fundame…Read more
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Skepticism and perceptual knowledgeIn Quentin Smith (ed.), Epistemology: new essays, Oxford University Press. pp. 121. 2008.
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114Knowledge in Perspective: Selected Essays in EpistemologyCambridge University Press. 1991.Ever since Plato, philosophers have faced one central question: what is the scope and nature of human knowledge? In this volume the distinguished philosopher Ernest Sosa collects essays on this subject written over a period of twenty-five years. All the major topics of contemporary epistemology are covered: the nature of propositional knowledge; externalism versus internalism; foundationalism versus coherentism; and the problem of the criterion. 'Sosa is one of the most prominent and most import…Read more
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96Classical analysisJournal of Philosophy 80 (11): 695-710. 1983.The first paragraph of the article reads: "Classical analysis is concerned neither with cataloguing usage nor with intellectual therapy (except of course by aiming to satisfy curiosity and remove puzzlement). Of recent sorts of analysis, it's the attempt to find the "logical structure of the world" or the "logical form" of various facts that chiefly claims our attention. But philosophers in every period have been absorbed by such analysis. Think of the Greek search for real definitions. Or think…Read more
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58Replies to Richard Fumerton, John Greco, and Michael WilliamsInternational Journal for the Study of Skepticism 1 (2): 138-149. 2011.This is my response to three commentators—Richard Fumerton, John Greco, and Michael Williams—for a symposium on my book, Reflective Knowledge
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147Knowing Full WellPrinceton University Press. 2010.In this book, Ernest Sosa explains the nature of knowledge through an approach originated by him years ago, known as virtue epistemology. Here he provides the first comprehensive account of his views on epistemic normativity as a form of performance normativity on two levels. On a first level is found the normativity of the apt performance, whose success manifests the performer's competence. On a higher level is found the normativity of the meta-apt performance, which manifests not necessarily f…Read more
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3A Virtue EpistemologyPhilosophical Studies 143 (3): 427-440. 2009.In my remarks, I discuss Sosa's attempt to deal with the sceptical threat posed by dreaming. Sosa explores two replies to the problem of dreaming scepticism. First, he argues that, on the imagination model of dreaming, dreaming does not threaten the safety of our beliefs. Second, he argues that knowledge does not require safety, but a weaker condition which is not threatened by dreaming skepticism. I raise questions about both elements of his reply.
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111Knowledge in Perspective: Selected Essays in EpistemologyCambridge University Press. 1991.From the back cover: "Ever since Plato, philosophers have faced one central question: What is the scope and nature of human knowledge? In this volume the distinguished philosopher Ernest Sosa has collected his essays on this subject written over a period of twenty-five years. All the major topics of contemporary epistemology are covered: the nature of propositional knowledge, externalism versus internalism, foundationalism versus coherentism, and the problem of the criterion. The resulting book …Read more
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4Interdisciplinary Core PhilosophyWiley-Blackwell. 2009.This collection includes papers that show some of the bearing of indisciplinary work on central questions of philosophy. Three main core subdisciplines are included, and the book is divided into corresponding sections: epistemology, ethics, and metaphysics Focuses on the core areas of Philosophy: epistemology, ethics, and metaphysics. Shows how interdisciplinary work can have important bearing even here
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99The foundations of foundationalismNoûs 14 (4): 547-564. 1980.There is a controversy in contemporary philosophy over the question whether or not knowledge must have a foundation. On one side are the foundationalists, who do accept the metaphor and find the foundation in sensory experience or the like. The coherentists, on the other side, reject the foundations metaphor and consider our body of knowledge a coherent whole floating free of any foundations. This controversy grew rapidly with the rise of idealism many years ago, and it is prominent today not on…Read more
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108Davidson's thinking causesIn John Heil & Alfred R. Mele (eds.), Mental Causation, Oxford University Press. 1993.
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31Reflective Knowledge: Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge, Volume IiOxford University Press. 2009.Reflective Knowledge draws together ground-breaking work in epistemology by Ernest Sosa. He argues for a reflective virtue epistemology based on virtuous circularity, shows how this idea may be found explicitly or just below the surface in such illustrious predecessors as Descartes and Moore, and defends the view against its rivals.
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235Metaphysics: An Anthology (edited book)Wiley-Blackwell. 1999.This anthology, intended to accompany _A Companion to Metaphysics_, brings together over 60 selections which represent the best and most important works in metaphysics during this century. The selections are grouped under ten major metaphysical problems and each section is preceded by an introduction by the editors
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89Tracking, competence, and knowledgeIn Paul K. Moser (ed.), The Oxford handbook of epistemology, Oxford University Press. pp. 264--287. 2002.In “Tracking, Competence, and Knowledge,” Ernest Sosa notes that in attempting to account for the conditions for knowledge, externalists have proposed that the justification condition be replaced or supplemented by the requirement that a certain modal relation be obtained between a fact and a subject's belief concerning that fact. While assessing attempts to identify such a relation, he focuses on an account labeled “Cartesian‐tracking”, which accounts for the relation in the form of two conditi…Read more
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153Man the rational animal?Synthese 122 (1-2): 165-78. 2000.This paper considers well known results of psychological researchinto the fallibility of human reason, and philosophical conclusionsthat some have drawn from these results. Close attention to theexact content of the results casts doubt on the reasoning that leadsto those conclusions
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189Précis of "A Virtue Epistemology" (Oxford University Press, 2007)Philosophical Studies 144 (1). 2009.This is a summary of "A Virtue Epistemology", the book that is the subject of this book symposium
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91Reliability and the a prioriIn John Hawthorne & Tamar Gendler (eds.), Conceivability and Possibility, Oxford University Press. pp. 369--384. 2002.